Last night I dragged the 5-speed rear end into the garage that was salvaged from the parts car I bought a couple years ago. Since the Jensen Healey I'm building at present will utilize the Getrag 5-speed transmission I needed to make sure that I matched up teh appropriate prop shaft and rear end. All three pieces were taken from said parts car.
After dealing with light bits on the Jensen for so long, I forgot that there were actual heavy assemblies on the car. The rear end (when complete with brakes) is really freaking heavy. If you need to move one about I strongly recommend having two people to do the work. Since it was just me at the house I managed to wrestle it onto a dolly and then navigated it out of parts storage, across the back patio, through the house and into the garage. It's a good thing the wife wasn't around. :) Also, it really helps a lot if you can remove the upper and lower suspension arms.
Between last night and this morning I managed to get the bushings out of the suspension arms. As much as I wanted them to pop out I finally had to resort to Map Gas and manhandling. There's nothing like the smell of ancient burning rubber. Blech! Took a midday break to run over and visit Jim @ Delta Motorsports. The wife, Jensen and I sat and chatted for a bit while I racked up quite a bill getting new bushings, oil seal, and brake shoes.
The rest of the afternoon / early evening was spent running the suspension arms through the sandblaster. My media cabinet is just big enough to fit the longer suspension arms, but not big enough for me to clean the ends. That's ok though, I'll be doing some open air blasting tomorrow to clean up the differential / axle assembly.
Also, I was very suprised how flimsy the stock brake drums are on the JH. While the sides are pretty robust, the front face is, well, not. So, when you're removing your drums be extra careful about tapping that front face with your BFH.
Cheers!
Jody
